In wireless communications networks lacking centralized control efficient scheduling of traffic air link resources can be a difficult task. An approach of allocating each connection the same weighting or the same amount of air link traffic resources although simple in design tends to be wasteful. At different times, a particular communications device or pair of devices corresponding to a connection may have different needs, e.g., due to: the type of data to be communicated, importance of data to be communicated, latency considerations, backlog, queue status, current channel conditions, congestion, application being executed, etc. Different types of devices may also have different device capabilities, e.g., different traffic queue buffer sizes, different display capabilities, etc. The same device may also have different needs at different times based on the capabilities of the other device with which it has a current connection. Thus at different times the importance of a particular device being allowed to use a traffic segment may be expected to vary.
If distributed scheduling techniques are employed for traffic scheduling it can be beneficial for the individual devices making the scheduling decisions to be situationally aware of the current needs of other devices competing to use the same resources. In view of the above there is a need for novel methods and apparatus which support the exchange of load related information between communications devices situated in a vicinity which are competing to use the same air link traffic resources. Since utilization of air link resources for control signaling tends to make those air link resources unavailable for traffic signaling, it would be advantageous if such methods and apparatus efficiently structured the control signaling to tend to minimize overhead.